As the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) meets at the UN's New York headquarters, CESR has weighed in on one of the most critical and contentious issues on its agenda; accountability.
The HLPF, a new body established under the Rio+20 outcome document, has been set up to monitor and review implementation of the new sustainable development commitments to be agreed in 2015. While the question of accountability is just one of a number of difficult challenges it must address between now and July 9, when its second round of meetings draws to a close, past experience has shown that development commitments mean little if they are not backed up with effective accountability mechanisms.
CESR's Luke Holland, speaking at a morning session with civil society hosted by the President of the Economic and Social Council, outlined five essential characteristics of an effective post-2015 monitoring and accountability framework.
The success or failure of future development efforts hinges on whether all development actors are held accountable to their human rights obligations under a truly universal framework. Governments must be held accountable to the commitments they make, both to their own citizens and to each other, as part of a new Global Partnership for Development. And with the private sector playing an ever-increasing role in development processes, it is likewise essential that corporations be held to their human rights responsibilities, as set out in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Moreover, if the HLPF is to become an effective catalyst for just and transformative development, it should be at the center of a multi-layered ecosystem of accountability in which a broad spectrum of mechanisms, spanning the global, regional, national and local levels, work in synergy. New mechanisms specific to the sustainable development goals should work in complementarity with existing accountability systems, including parliamentary, judicial and administrative bodies.
Real accountability must also be people-centered, which means creating enabling conditions of citizens' participation, both around the HLPF itself and in other monitoring and accountability processes set up at the national and regional levels. These voices must be heard and acted upon. The HLPF can also support meaningful participation by promoting participatory processes at the national level, and spurring access to data and information, At a time when freedom of expression, association and information are under attack in many countries, these issues are more pressing than ever.
Similarly, the HLPF must deliver transformative accountability. Given that reporting to the Forum will be voluntary, it is all the more important that review processes are rigorous, interrogating policy efforts, resource allocations and international commitments, and ensuring corrective action where necessary.
Taken together, these elements represent the difference between an accountability system that is merely ceremonial, and one that is genuinely rights-based. Human rights offer a universal, multi-layered, people-centred framework for transformative accountability. By anchoring the SDG accountability framework in human rights, the HLPF can powerfully incentivise the achievement of the goals, and thereby ensure they do not go down in history as another set of unfulfilled promises.